No Such Thing - At 'Dem Flicks w\ Malcolm

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri May 08, 2009 5:13 pm

Caught this the other day. Looked like it'd be good, mindless background noise from the description & it'd some actors I'd heard of. Thought it'd be a straight-up monster flick.

Missed the first twenty minutes or so, but watched it for a few. The pacing was off for the type of movie I was expecting, so I watched a bit more. The director was shooting shit in this oddly straight-faced yet over-the-top manner.

Anyhow, Sarah Polley ("Dawn of the Dead" [remake], "Go") is some intern at a news station. Her fiancee goes on some expedition to Scandinavia & disappears. Her manager thinks it's a good angle & sends her off on the trip.

Eventually (there's about 30-45 minutes of gradual, build-up bullshit), she finds out that there's some ancient, immortal, evil creature that lives waaaaaaaaay up north that killed her fiancee & his camera crew.

The makeup dude took Tim Curry's "Legend" latex suit, painted it green, & broke off the horns. I swear to Christ, it looks like Darkness's spitting image. Except it's not Tim Curry, it's Robert John Burke ("Robocop III") who plays the monster like an alcoholic, homicidal-rage-prone version of Beetlejuice. He doesn't do the most spectacular job, but the theme puts such a heavy-handed fucked up spin on the plot & dialogue that I suppose I can't blame him too much.

This film's entire twist is trying to shoot a monster movie in a realistic fashion. Green Darkness actually gets dragged back to civilization, where he has press conferences & such. That sequence has loads of scenes that were done so incompetently they damn near make the story painfully unwatchable & predictable at several points.

For a flick I'd never heard of & expected little from, I'll give this a passing rating. It starts out w\ interminably slow pacing, gets insanely interesting for about 30 minutes, slow down to a crawl again, then wraps up everything at the speed of light in the last 20 minutes. Some of the lines that Green Darkness gets are pretty good, though (during the really interesting 30 minutes).

"You can breathe fire? How?"
G.D. : "How should I fucking know?"

"Are you going to kill me?"
G.D. : "Depends."
"On what?"
G.D. : "On whether or not you're a complete fucking idiot."

It's a weird twist on the genre I hadn't seen before. Admittedly a fun concept to run w\ for half an hour, but the rest of the movie was either unnecessary long or boring social commentary about how human beings are built-in ungrateful, unpleasant motherfuckers that corrupt everything they touch in some intangible way (even when there are TANGIBLE benefits). Had G.D. role been done better (either better behind-the-scenes or in front of the camera), this film would've been far more entertaining. If the writers & director hadn't given up thinking for 50-75% of the movie, it'd be more entertaining. As it stands, it's just a novelty.

Edited By Malcolm on 1241817318

Post by **GORDON** » Fri May 08, 2009 7:23 pm

Malcolm wrote:Eventually (there's about 30-45 minutes of gradual, build-up bullshit), she finds out that there's some ancient, immortal, evil creature that lives waaaaaaaaay up north that killed her fiancee & his camera crew.

Grendel's mother?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri May 08, 2009 7:57 pm

GORDON wrote:
Malcolm wrote:Eventually (there's about 30-45 minutes of gradual, build-up bullshit), she finds out that there's some ancient, immortal, evil creature that lives waaaaaaaaay up north that killed her fiancee & his camera crew.
Grendel's mother?

More like a mixture of Beetlejuice & Beelzebub. One of the more amusing movie characters I can remember in awhile.

Post by **Vince** » Fri May 08, 2009 9:35 pm

Darkness was awesome. If they'd made the movie completely without Cruise and just had Darkness turn the bitch and the whole thing devolve into strange fantasy porn, it'd have been one of the best movies ever made.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri May 08, 2009 10:15 pm

Vince wrote:Darkness was awesome. If they'd made the movie completely without Cruise and just had Darkness turn the bitch and the whole thing devolve into strange fantasy porn, it'd have been one of the best movies ever made.

That was actually the original story. I shit you not.

Post by **Vince** » Fri May 08, 2009 10:18 pm

So you're saying that Tom Cruise did in fact fuck up a wet dream?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri May 08, 2009 10:55 pm

Vince wrote:So you're saying that Tom Cruise did in fact fuck up a wet dream?

Tom Cruise wasn't part of the cadre of studio execs that extensively fucked w\ the original story, screenplay, music, & a host of other shit. That's in addition to the set that burned down in the middle of filming.